


the show must go on.

by bonestilts (orphan_account)



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: M/M, War AU, but its definitely a pairing, but its wet and rainy all the time, i dont think this counts as a slash, jungle yaknow man, theyre all tanned and dirty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 16:17:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16537967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/bonestilts
Summary: It was pointless. Andrew had been drafted, he hadn’t had a choice.





	the show must go on.

**Author's Note:**

> you can tell ive started watching hbo's the pacific right  
> this was based off that (also sorry i havent edited this either so its shit leave me alone)

The groaning never stopped. Their men had been whining about the rain for longer than an hour now, Andrew had only just gotten used to the pour until it came down harder on them. Their service uniforms hadn’t been dry in an entire day and Andrew’s finger tips had pruned within the first twenty minutes of wet. He felt uncomfortable, but then when did he ever not? 

They were in the middle of a foreign island, surrounded by the Pacific, with no hopes of leaving until the Navy showed up to strip them away from the artillery shaken forest. There was never time to hope anymore, Andrew had seen too many good men go, not leave, but _die._ No one ever left, even the shot-down teenagers that lied to elders that they were of age didn’t get to leave this godforsaken place. Their spirits will forever remain here, along with the stale blood-soaked sand that the tide never reached, failing to wash away the evidence of what horror once took place in that very spot. 

It was pointless. Andrew had been drafted, he hadn’t had a choice. But he daren’t bring that up, in everyone else’s eyes he had volunteered for his country, to fight for his life (although at the time they hadn’t known how bad it would be). It seems that all that time spent covering WWI in history class hadn’t done the kids any luck, there was a constant stream of them desperate to be placed on a boat to wade towards the shore with rifles in hand, or in a plane believing they were ready to risk their parachute working. They truly had no way of knowing the truth of it all, not with the papers only covering their “victories”, if stabbing another _kid_ in the face with your bayonet qualified as a “victory”. Yet they just kept coming.

Andrew almost felt sick, probably from the issued tin of mush that he’d been handed by Rick. The print on the metal read ‘ _Field Rations: MEAT & BEANS’_ but Andrew couldn’t help tasting shit and puke. Maybe even a bit of soil from the bottom of his boot too. It was all they could eat, they needed to save the dry products for worse conditions, and although Andrew felt as if this was as worse as things could get, he knew that their situation was moderate. It was just that whatever the fuck he was eating reminded him a lot like the rain mixing with the dirt beneath his ass, making it all soft and pudgy. It was exactly like eating mud. 

And what made it even better was the fact that he couldn’t even see the colour of the meal, it was too dark for him to see anything other than the glint of other’s eyes and the occasional inflamed butt of a smoke.

They were told to keep the cans so that they could hang them from hooks on the fences surrounding their base, that way if the Japs tried to sneak up on them that night, as they did most nights, the noise would substitute as an alarm. It was a smart idea, one that someone from their company had thought of on the spot, they were a smart group of men. Andrew pitied himself knowing that the lot of them were being wasted away.

“Hey, you wan’ this? I can’t stomach any more.” he tipped the can towards the Marine beside him.

The rain dripped off the front of his helmet, Andrew was glad his head wasn’t soaked. Watts reached out to take the tragedy from his shaking hands. It had turned to soup, it wasn’t supposed to be that consistency. 

Watts was a tall bloke with dirty blonde hair that he cut with a blunt veggie knife he’d stolen from the cooks before they departed the boat. He was a good looking young man, one Andrew would’ve been friends with even after high school — if only he’d finished. Watts had lost a lot of weight since they landed, used to have a bit of a tummy but was all flat now. He had a fairly camouflage-able tan against the sand of the beach with nicely kept nails, he was a joker, always tried to make others around him let out a bit of a chuckle. Andrew didn’t think he liked being here, didn’t like the danger or the sound of guns being fired off into the dark unknown. 

Watts also knew a helluva lot about movies. Andrew prayed that he’d make it out.

“Not good?”

“I’ll be honest by telling you that I’ve no fucking clue what it even is.”

That made Watts laugh, it was the high effeminate chuckle that only belonged to the man himself. He’s gone through a lot of beatings because of the pitch of his voice, sometimes even because of the way he smiles. He’s a feminine man, more flamboyant than the rest, was all Andrew could conclude with. A large part of him liked Watts for it — a refresher, reminder that being masculine didn’t have _everything_ to do with being a Marine. There was variety within their unit. 

Earlier on in their journeys Watts had tried hard to dull down his tone, had tried to deepen his voice and restrain himself from speaking naturally. It had pained Andrew a little to see him try to modify himself according to the other men. He liked Watts a lot better now that he’d stopped worrying, no one had time to worry about those kinds of things anymore. They were on the verge of death every day. 

“Surly it can’t be that bad,” he pondered, peering into the darkness of the tin.

Andrew nodded, “Go on, give it a taste.”

“Says it’s meat and beans here.”

Rain rattled against their helmets, muffling their voices from one another.

“You’ll have to prove that with a taste.”

Watts smiled slyly, before dipping his metal spoon into the depths and popping whatever was on the other end into his mouth. It took him a moment to react. He was expecting a noisy gag, a slap to the chest to help it go down, maybe even some gargling. But no,

“Dude, this ain’t even that bad.”

Andrew emitted a sound of disbelief, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Am not. I’d be after this any day of the week.”

Andrew smiled hollowly, “Lucky you, we’ve got several crates full of em’ on the trucks. Expect to have them for Christmas dinner.”

Watts scoffed, “We won't be here for Christmas."  Andrew looked up at him sharply, that was a bold thing to say, there was no trace of hope in his voice though, so maybe he knew he was lying. " And to hear you call these shit. You going soft on us, Wicki?” he put the tin down beside his hip. It didn’t make a noise sitting in the soft earth.

Andrew dropped his chin down towards his feet, he could see Watts lighting a cigarette for himself in his periphery, “Maybe.”

There was a quick flicker of concern on his friend’s face, his dark eyebrows faltered into a frown. Watts tilted his soggy packet towards him, an exchange. “Want one?”

“Gotta pass. Too tired.”

Dog tromped past, Andrew could feel the splattering of _more_ mud on the back of his shirt, “Don’t let this get to your head,” and knocked the back of his helmet with his glock. He was referring to the rain, and distress amongst other men, the fear buzzing deep within stomachs, and lack of encouragement from Officers who, too, were struggling to get themselves back on their feet. “you’re probably too cold, get back into your foxhole. You deserve some rest.” 

Dog was right, he was freezing. Cold enough to be hypothermic, Andrew would have to check in with their Medic sooner or later. He hadn’t been to the bay in a few days, had skipped the visit after yesterdays firing along the river. He’d been so close to going down, one of the fuckers skimmed his bicep, only managing to slice through a couple layers of skin. Still, it would probably be infected by tomorrow. 

“Sure thing, Dog.”

Andrew lifted himself up from the even colder ground and received a tap on the back by Shane “Dog” Dawson. He was their Commanding Officer for this particular visit to Hell, though at most times he didn’t act like it. He was a good egg in Andrew’s books, a fellow ginger despite it usually looking much darker, what with the blood and dirt mixed into it and all. He was a real fighter — he definitely had a vulnerable side, a part of him that was just terrified of how this whole shit-show would end up, but it was harder to catch. 

Andrew was observant, he saw it every now and then and it made him feel much better about himself. For he was the Ultimate Pussy. And everyone knew it.

Dog was nice to Andrew, always had been, since his first night staying in bootcamp and since stepping off the boat that brought them all here in the first place. Sometimes he’d slip him an extra fag or even better, the blessed pair of dry socks. They called them the _Drocks_ (pretty self-explanatory). There was only one pair and the Drocks went around the unit, from one man to another, all according to who Dog thought deserved to own them for the day, maybe even three. Andrew had been lucky to possess the Drocks for 30 hours once.

Rice (their nickname for Adams), he was the twink of them all, had dibs over the Drocks at the moment. Rice was obviously Dog’s favourite, no one spoke about it. He _is_  good with the machine gun, has a good eye for movement and aim, not that anyone really needed to aim when using _that_ weapon. He’s one of the only men here to have shaved off all their hair, he had the biggest, bluest eyes Andrew had ever seen and could tell immediately that he was much like Watts. Whether or not that was a good thing was debatable, Andrew felt comfortable with it despite it being frowned upon in their time — others would feel otherwise.

Andrew marched over to where he’d be sleeping tonight, through the present pour. There was a large flap of dark plastic draped over his foxhole, that was his issued tarp used to prevent flooding (and ensure coverage). They were supposed to be dark green but the manufactures made a mistake and they all turned out to be black — which wasn’t too bad, it still kept them hidden during the night. At least it did its job keeping them alive.

Dog followed him over, Andrew immediately imagined himself being tucked in by him, just like at home. What a dream. Dog watched as Andrew lowered himself into the hole in the stiff ground, he got unlucky and had no one to share it with — no extra heat for them to absorb into each other.

“Oh, and Wicki?” Andrew looked up towards Dog’s figure standing over his head, he was a black silhouette, “I was serious about you needing a good rest. Try to sleep as much as you can and don’t get up until I come get you, alright?”

That was nearly impossible. It was most likely that Andrew would either wake from a soul-swallowing war related nightmare, or be chased from his hole within the early hours by their enemies. They were never alone on this island. Never would be.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. See you once the sun’s up.” Dog cast one more glance at Andrew, he could only tell by the movement of his head — otherwise he really had no idea where he was looking, which was an eerie reality. He turned and yelled lowly to the rest of their unit, “Smoke and lamps out! All smoke and lamps out!”

Dog slugged away through the mud back towards the boys circling the mini fire they’d risked lighting. It was a blessing that the tarp keeping it ablaze hadn’t caught yet. It was officially time for bed.

Andrew curled up into a ball and tried his best to wrap the heavy, not to mention terribly itchy, woolly blanket around his shoulders and knees. He prayed that the wet mud didn’t drip down the sides of his hole, or that the whole cliff gave way and collapsed in on him whilst he slept. This was as warm as it was going to get. Andrew always kept his helmet on when sleeping, he didn’t mind the bulkiness of it poking at his temples. It made him feel safer; for if anyone tried to shoot him blindly through the tarp, if he was lucky and the bullet struck his head, he most likely wouldn’t die. 

Andrew listened in on the pour, strained his ears to hear the droplets of uncontaminated water hit the leaves of the forest all around them, it was a peaceful sound. Very quiet, very subtle, soft and careful, calming. Then he heard the squelch of boots in mud, it was coming towards him. It shouldn’t be one of the boys on duty — they were supposed to be positioned behind the barracks looking for movement, waiting for a sign of unnatural light on the other side of the clearing. So it was someone out of bed.

Then his tarp rattled and the rain came spitting in for a moment while a heavy body dropped beside him. Andrew’s first thought was someone leaving a corpse with him, but the dark shape had warmth to it; so he eliminated death. Andrew sat up fully, making sure to crane his neck forward so that he doesn’t disturb the tarp again. It was so, so very cold.

“What are you doing?”

“Came to check that you were resting up well.”

Andrew immediately recognised the hushed tone of Watts’ voice. The taller man shuffled around so that he was facing Andrew, they were nose to nose — almost, not really, they had a few palms between them.

“Dog already came ‘round for that. You don’t need to do it too, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Watts whispered back, neither were certain as to why they were keeping their voices down. Other men around the area were still chattering away in the darkness and rain. It was still so fucking cold. There was a break in their speech and Andrew began to shiver. 

Andrew sniffled, “And it’s not as if you being here would allow me to _rest_ _up well_ anyway. You’re distracting.”

There was a short laugh, much like a scoff, Watts found him amusing. “Oh, really? I’m distracting.”

“Sure, you’ve let some of the rain in and reminded me of where I am.”

“You try to forget?”

“All the time." Andrew could feel, rather than see, Watts' blatant gaze on him. "I don’t think anyone wants to be hanging around here anymore.”

They’d lost too many already. And not all from shots. The salt water was messing with their stomachs and the tuck they’d stolen from the Army had been out of date for years; causing them all to be sick for an entire week. Sometimes men’s immunes systems decided to cave in and an easily curable stomach bug would be the end of them. It was insane and unbelievable to think that some of the men on this haunting island were literally giving up — giving up their lives and their will to live. Staying here was killing them.

And then there was the artillery, trees rained down on them like snowflakes, guns zipped through the humid air like firecrackers. No one could see them until they’d landed themselves in your calve, or your bicep, or tricep, or thigh, or neck. They were slowly being swallowed by this horrific place, the enemies hiding underground picking them off one by one. Neither were more skilled than the other, they both had the same weapons. Snipers, hand-helds, machine guns, flares (used to see the enemy during the darker hours), it was all the same, yet neither one would finally fucking win.

No one wanted to be here anymore, everyone wanted to go home. To their mothers, wives, fathers, sisters, brothers, girlfriends and… the _others_. They weren’t heroes at heart, they’d always be killers to themselves. 

Andrew wanted to leave.

“I want to be here.” Watts whispered back after some time. Andrew knew he was lying.

He grimaced, “You don’t, not really.”

"Sure I do. We can't give up just because a couple hundred Nips think they can overrule us. They're outnumbered."

"And they hate us. _They're_ the ones that won't give up, they're angry fucks and won't leave us the hell alone until we pop off." 

"We're doing the Aussies a good deal of a favour though, doesn't that help lighten the mood?"

"What? No fucking way, the only thoughts to do with Australia that lighten my mood are about the ladies over there."  Andrew didn't believe a single word of it, there was hardly a speck of truth behind it. Yet he found himself worry-free, oddly. He shifted slightly from his back, trying to ignore the wet mud dripping down their walls and burying itself down his chilled neck, "And you never answered me."  


"I did. I do."

"Truthfully. I know for a goddamn fact that you're taking the piss." Andrew tried to angle his chin towards Watts' so that he could hear him as clearly as possible despite their drop in volume, "You don't want to be on this island anymore, you can't stand it."

There was an exhausted sigh, “No, I guess you’re right, not really. But I like knowing we’re doing this to save other people, even if we’re—you know, harming others.” Possibly another lie.

“Which people are we even saving anymore? No one at home seems to care, the papers don’t even cover the facts. We’re being thrashed over here yet my mother thinks that none of us are dying, they’re being fed false information about our status. We’re being killed.”

“We’re far from being thrashed, we’re doing well, I mean—we’re being killed, sure, but we’re also doing the killing. And anyway we’re all trying our best, there’s not much more we can do.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Okay,” Watts took a short breath, he was debating his planned continuation, Andrew wished he wouldn’t ask, "but wait, one more thing, why do you try to forget?”

Andrew sighed, “I don’t know. I don’t like the feeling of being here, I feel… gross. It’s gross to be murdering these kids when we’re all the same age, we all jumped out of school to come here, all send letters back home to our loved ones, all imagine we’re eating our favourite meal during chow. We just look different.”

“And think differently. We’re here for ourselves, yes, but we’re also here to protect other countries. Like Australia and New Zealand. They need our help, and you’re right we’re all the same—so we need to help them survive. It’s just this little fraction of the population that are determined to stop us from doing that.”

“They don’t seem so little up close.”

“I guess not,”

“Can we stop now?”

“Yes.”

Watts shifted closer to him, Andrew could almost feel his radiating heat. He wanted to feel it, wanted to escape the shaking and the fear of frostbite. He didn’t want to die uncomfortably but he supposed that that would have to do, he’d been drafted to fight in the bloody war. 

“Cold?” the quiet, soft voice asked him.

Andrew heard the clicking of his teeth as he spoke, “Very.”

“Here then, let me help.” Watts scooted over even closer and untucked the blanket from underneath Andrew. He almost whined, not liking the breeze of cold air that entered his little warmth dome until Watts slid in beside him, wrapping the blanket around them both. It felt much better. He was quickly warming up again, this time with the extra heat from Watt’s arm and thigh by his side.

Still, there were worries. 

“Don’t you think—should we not be found like this, in the morning?”

Watts breathed out his nose noisily, Andrew couldn’t read the emotion, “Do you care?”

“About you?”

“No, about what people think when they find us like this?”

Andrew moved his forehead a little closer until his chin tapped the very top of Watts’ shoulder. He was so warm, his uniform was soggy and damp, it spoiled the sensation of feeling dry warmth, but Andrew enjoyed the feeling of another body beside him.

“I guess not, men do this all the time—right? It’s normal.” Andrew wasn’t too sure, this was his first time sharing a foxhole with another Marine. He wasn’t sure what was normal and what wasn’t in these situations. But he trudged on. “It’s not as if we’re doing anything bad, we’re just trying to warm each other up. Helping each other out.”

Watts chuckled deeply, “I guess ‘helping each other out’ can be used for many things.”

“What do you mean?” he knew what he meant, he was making an innuendo. 

Andrew’s father taught him about those when they were listening to a comedy cassette on his fifteenth birthday. There’d been an inappropriate joke that he hadn’t understood, he had to beg for half an hour before his father finally gave in and explained to him the possible different meanings of certain phrases. The intelligence of whoever thought of these things fascinated Andrew. Back then he’d wanted to meet them. Now he wasn’t even sure he’d meet his own father again.

“No, wait, what did _you_ mean when you asked about me?”

“When?”

They both paused as someone passed Andrew’s foxhole, he supposed it was theirs now. Wicki and Watts’ foxhole. But Watts wouldn’t stay forever, it was just for this one night, what felt like the coldest night of the year — and it wasn’t even Christmas yet. Ha. They both realised that the chatter had died down a fair bit, the men were really heading off to bed now. They all needed their beauty sleep. Andrew worried that the boys at the barracks could hear them, then remembered that they were a fair feet away. As long as they kept their voices down — and the continuously falling rain would help muffle their speech too.

“Earlier. I asked you if you cared, and you answered with ‘about you’. What did you mean?”

Andrew wiggled around, they were insanely close now. Andrew wasn’t sure if he was alright with this anymore, despite it being lovely and warm — could he handle the possible consequences that this picture could bring? Then he thought about Rice, and Watts, and realised that they’d been freed from abuse, from harassment, they were fine now. The men had gotten over it all because after all in the battle field, they were all the same species, underneath all that skin, all those organs, they all shared the same skeleton. Every man for themselves didn’t exist anymore, they were one.

“About _how_ you are. Your preferences.”

Andrew felt Watts nod. This was a silly conversation to have in the middle of war, they both felt like schoolboys hiding out in the library in attempt to skip morning chapel.

“And do you care?”

Andrew thought about it for a moment, he really hadn’t needed to. He knew the answer already.  


“No. Not at all, really.”

“That’s good.” Watts let Andrew snuggle closer, it was a subconscious decision. Neither knew that they’d been slowly moving closer as time passed, they hadn’t even noticed their own proximity. “Do you think about it often?”

Andrew closed his eyes, “I suppose so. Not for me, though. Only you two.”

“Two?”

“Mhm. Rice and you.”

“Ah,” Watts smiled to himself in the dark, he had since turned onto his back so that Andrew could cling onto him, he stared blankly at the tarp overhead. He couldn’t see a single thing, could definitely hear the splattering of water on thick plastic, “and Dog.”

Andrew stiffened slightly, “Dog? Really? How do you know?”

“There’s far more of us out there than you realise, Wicki.” 

That was a shock. Andrew presumed that all men like Watts and Rice could tell if others were, as if they could sense on others, smell it like a women’s perfume, or the stench of a rotting body that makes them all retch into their own helmets. Every time. Perhaps they knew who else in their unit was _like_ them, they had the ability to blackmail, threaten. 

“Oh—I, Andrew’s fine.” he offered quietly.

They were very warm. 

“Garrett’s fine too.”

This was nice.

“So—Garrett, how do you know about Dog? Do you have the ability to read it in people?”

“It’s kinda like that, but it’s obvious for everyone to see. You’ve just gotta look a little closer.” Garrett admitted quietly, the only thing stopping them from being eavesdropped on now was the pour. They were both grateful for the rain now.

“I do look close, thought I was actually quite good at observing Dog.”

“Then you’ll have picked it up already,” Garrett hushed into Andrew’s dark hair, he could hear the slight smile in his tone, cheeky, “you probably just didn’t know _what_ it was you picked up.”

Then Andrew got it. It’d been staring at him in the face this entire time. 

“Rice.” he sighed. Garrett hummed in confirmation, they both sounded oddly happy with their shared discovery.

“There you go. That wasn’t so hard, see?” In fact it really wasn’t at all, perhaps Andrew had the same ability. He still had plenty of progress to make for him to reach Garrett’s skill level though, he was only a rookie.

“Does that mean you can see it in other men too? From our unit?” he was too excited to sleep now, but still kept his eyes closed. He liked imagining what he looked like snuggled up beside Garrett, in the afternoon light with no rain and dandelions surrounding them. Scratch that—that’s too much, he liked imagining a better situation; one that didn’t involve being wet and not being able to feel one’s toes. Andrew felt childish—this whole thing was childish he realised.

“Yeah, I’d like to believe so.”

“Tell me who else you know about,”

Garrett turned his head so that his cheek and lips were pressed into Andrew’s head, it was so incredible intimate and yet Andrew knew he wouldn’t do anything to stop it from happening. He didn’t only feel okay with it, but he liked it too, he liked the comfort and the sense of care. That out in such a hopeless world, in such a devastating place, there were still people out there willing to show care for Andrew. It felt like a step closer to home.

He whispered back, “I don’t think that’s a very good thing to do.”

Andrew felt strange — had he fucked something up? Had he given himself away? He didn’t like the uneasiness in his gut, he didn’t like feeling judged. “Why not?”

“Because, I mean, i-it’s not my place to say. They should be the ones to tell you, to feel comfortable enough to—“  


“But Dog, you told me about Dog. Why not the others? I won’t spoil it, I don’t gossip.”

The rain was beginning to settle down, Andrew could tell that it was slowing. Soon there would be silence among all the men and nothing to hide away the words between him and Garrett. They were running out of time and Andrew was desperate. 

“Please, Garrett, I won’t tell anyone. I just want to know…”

There was a drawn out sigh, Garrett was becoming tired. Andrew could hear it in his breathing. This was a stupid idea, men don’t speak about these sorts of things. “I don’t see why you do, but, I guess I could, maybe, tell you one or two.”

Andrew felt something deep within. There was a voice at the back of his mind advising him that this was a bad idea, that maybe his name would come off Garrett’s tongue. Then he fought it back and told himself that that was the stupidest thing he’d ever thought of, nothing so horrible would happen. He would never. Still, he pressed on, pressed closer, wanted to hear more, almost _wanted_ for it to happen.

“Go on,” Andrew made sure his voice was much quieter now, he knew that Garrett was straining his ears to hear him. He heard the man next to him open his mouth wetly, then—

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and for a moment Andrew could see Garrett’s face clearly for the first time that evening. His eyes were wide and in the split second that they were visible, Andrew recognised the glassiness to them—he was still frightened, even at times like this. They were dark and his once blue iris's were non-existent, death had poisoned them all. Garrett’s cheeks were dirty, his entire face was dirty, they were always so fucking dirty. Andrew wondered briefly if his hair was still coloured red, whether that was from the blood of his comrades or natural light. 

Then decided quickly that he didn’t want to know the answer, didn’t want to see his reflection in anything else but a puddle, broken up and forever rippling.

The noise didn’t come for what felt like a long time, but in reality must have been only a few seconds. Garrett and Andrew lay there silently, waiting for the boom, waiting for the earth beneath them to react to the destruction. Then it came, the shuddering and vibration beneath their hips, palms and skulls, it shook their bones too, only just. The trees sent of rustling. A simple reminder by the Japs that they were still out there and hated them more than ever. It was idiotic of them to come running, prepared to slash their throats, when the Americans already had the advantage, they had so many more men. 

Garrett didn’t continue for a while, they both kept to themselves and silently reflected in the cool night air. Andrew kept his ears sharp for the _clanking_ of tin cans against each other, the sound of weak soil giving way to wooden posts—letting them sink to the ground as a sign of intrusion, power. Everyone knew they were coming.

“When do you think they’ll give up?”

Andrew turned his head back towards Garrett’s dark figure, they were back again.

“Never.”

“When do you think they’ll stop bloody bothering us?”

“Never,” Andrew clenched his teeth together, his jaw was too tight. Pissed, he uttered, “they send out bombs every fucking night to keep us awake, they’re never going to stop. Not until we kill them all.”

Garrett was about to add on but it finally happened, and Andrew was ready. The cans cracked together once, twice, a third time before Andrew could unwrap himself from the Marine beside him and charge out of his foxhole, almost destroying to the tarp in the process.

“They’re fucking here! The Japs are fucking here!” Dog yelled from somewhere along Andrew’s right, they all had their rifled in hand. 

Ready to slaughter some morons who thought it’d be a good idea to come rushing into their camp. A crowd of dark figures were spewing over the fence line, they all had something sharp and long in their hands. Dog’s men were bracing themselves behind the barracks, splattering of light already flashing here and there. Andrew’s ears were immune to the _pops_ and _claps_ of gunfire, he could only hear it when he wanted to.

“Not today fuckwits,” Andrew swore under his breath, he could feel Garrett marching behind him. 

They were making their way towards Rice who’d already set up his Maxim machine gun and had it blasting through the wall of Japs, he was crouched behind a moulding log. 

Dog’s booming voice never disappeared, it was a constant echo in the men’s ears. Andrew’s rifle jammed once or twice and throughout the fight there was a gentle reminder behind the left of his ear to ask Dog for a replacement once this was over, whenever that would be. Andrew couldn’t concentrate on the task at hand, couldn’t focus his eyes on the men dropping in front of him. Instead he convinced himself that he was elsewhere, back in his families’ house in Illinois, serving chocolate-chip pancakes to his younger sister whenever he’d saved up enough to buy the ingredients. 

Always on her birthday, he made sure he always had enough on her birthday. Always on her—

“Wicki—hey, buddy, keep your eyes open,” Garrett’s usually shrill voice was deep and loud in his ear, it blocked out the smell of gunpowder and the taste of metallic iron on his tongue, something was wrong, “Wicki, Wicki—you’re fine, just fine, keep your eyes open for me. Siwicki.”

His whole body tasted the metallic now, his mind was buzzing, the backs of his eyes throbbed dully. He was hurting all over, Garrett’s hand was pressing down hard on him, somewhere, he couldn’t tell where, he couldn’t recognise where each limp separated from the rest, he was one massive lump of pain and numbness. Shock, he was going through shock though he couldn’t understand why.

“Corpsmen! We need the corpsmen!” 

It was him, Garrett—Watts was going to say him, that was why he’d been so hesitant. But why now? Why did he only accept that now? Why didn’t he bring it up earlier, why had they stopped talking? Did it even matter? 

Watts had been good to him, Andrew remembers meeting him for the first time in boot camp. They hadn't become friends until they'd fully deployed, that's when all hell broke loose and Andrew learnt that teamwork was everything, trusting the men around him meant keeping his life. He shared a tent with Watts and Rice for most of their time overseas, back on the previous island, and lucky him for they were both killer shots. 

Watts and Andrew used to bond over shaving Rice's head, they'd design lewd illustrations in the fine hair and Rice would pound his boots into them until they were bruised. It was fun not having to worry about death all the time, not having the memory of some of his closest mate's brains exploding from their fragile skulls. The heat was fun too, when Watts was asleep out in the sun, Rice and him would delicately put their dog-tags on his chest so that those patches of skin would remain pale. To this day Watts has odd little shapes marked around his body, places his tan never reached. It marked him as one of them. They were all in this together.

"Everything's going to be fine, hold on, yeah? Just hold on a little longer, don't leave yet, not yet."

He tried to speak to Watts, he could see him through the tears, he was so blurry and distorted but he was there. He was as tall as ever, peering over Andrew like he was a lifeless corpse on the ground, raiding through his pockets like they did with the dead Japs—maybe he _was_ raiding him, searching for the last pack of fags he kept in his breast pocket, or for the gold plated handgun he’d nicked from the Intelligence hut when they’d found one of the Japs’ bases a few days ago. 

How long had they been here for? Andrew could only emit a guttural sound. There was no hope for words.

“Wicki's been hit—Wicki needs a corpsmen! Hurry! Hey, no, Siwicki, listen I need you to stay with me, it’s not that bad. You’re going to be fine, man, just stay—“

No one had ever called him by his first time in the company, he hadn’t been addressed by that name for a very long time, not since the medical examinations when he first enlisted. That was when everyone had to be checked, Andrew wondered what they’d say now if he did it again. Would they tell him he couldn’t come because there was a hole ripped through him somewhere, maybe they’d still let him go — after all they’d all known that by agreeing for these young men to be shipped off, they were consenting for holes to be ripped through all of them. They were killers in their own right.

"Andrew. Andrew, plea—"

It had nothing to do with those who volunteered, someone should have stopped them. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t human. Andrew wanted to go home.

Andrew wanted to leave.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> also lmk if any of u recognise this kinda writing..... dont wanna label myself as orphan but i might just be orphan dnkfd


End file.
